Hermione's Cure
by fearlessness
Summary: The Dark haunts Hermione's subconscious, taunting her to do the unspeakable. r/r! or i'll personally send a bird to pOop on u!!
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, unfortunately, or any other of the jazzy HP characters for that matter. Though if I did, it sure would be spiffy! :D btw! Read and review or else the dammed Count of vOluptuous sensuality will call u a….uhhh……*thinking hard*…….. an ASS! Wow, I'm clever…. hahaha*gag*ha. Enjoy!  
  
  
  
  
  
Hermione opened the nearest book, once again enjoying her supposed favorite past time.  
  
'Some people called it "the time of undoing"; some, wishing to be more positive, spoke of it as "the replanting" or "the restoring" or even "the resurrection" of the Earth. All these names were accurate. Something had been done, and now it was being undone. Much had died or been broken or killed, and now it was coming back to life.  
  
Why do people read, what is their purpose, what do they wish to accomplish betwixt the leafs of someone else's ingenuity? I know why I read: to gain knowledge, to extend my influence through the times of a growing intellectual world. Well, purposes can be deceiving.  
  
A dull ache darted behind her left eyebrow.  
  
'This was the work of the world in those days: Nutrients were put back in the soil of the great rain forests of the world, so the trees could grow tall again. Grazing was banished from the edges of the great deserts of Africa and Asia, and grass was planted so that steppe and then savanna could slowly reconquer territory they had lost to the stone and sand. Though the weather stations high in orbit could not change the climate, they tweaked the winds often enough that no spot on Earth would suffer drought or flood, or lack for sunlight. In great preserves, the surviving animals learned how to live again in the wild. All the nations of the world have an equal claim on food, and no one feared hunger anymore. Good teachers came to every child, and every man and woman had a decent chance to become whatever his of her talents and passions and desires led them to become.'  
  
What is this book called again? Why am I reading it? *It is your destiny Hermione. Never question your destiny, but we must save that lesson for another day.*  
  
She flipped to the front and read The History of Wizardry in Middle Earth.  
  
O yes, my extra credit project for history. Here goes.  
  
'It should have been a happy time, with humanity pressing forward into a future, in which the world would be healed, and which a comfortable life could be lived without the shame of knowing that it came at someone else's expense. And for many – perhaps most – it was. But many others could not turn their faces from the shadows of the past. Too many creatures were missing, never to be restored. Too many people, too many nations, now laid buried in the soil of the past. Once the world had teemed with seven billion human lives. Now a tenth of that number tended the gardens of Earth. The survivors could not easily forget the century of war and plague, of drought and flood and famine, of desperate fury leading to despair. Every step of every living man and woman trod on someone's grave, or so it seemed.  
  
Hermione jumped as she felt something drag across her foot. She glanced up in time to melt into the eyes of a Ron Weasley, the man she had loved ere the first time her body told her instinctively what love meant for a man and woman. For a moment she feared his mischievous grin would swallow her whole. She bit her lip nonchalantly and continued reading.  
  
'So it was not only forests and grasslands that were brought back to life. People also sought to bring back the lost memories, the stories, the intertwining paths that men and women had followed that led them to their times of glory and their times of shame. They built machines that let them see into the past, at first the great sweeping changes across the centuries, and then, as the machinery was refined, the faces and the voices of the dead.  
  
'They knew, of course, that they could not record it at all. There were not enough alive to witness all the actions of the dead. But by sampling here and there, by following this question to its answer, that nation to its end, the men and women of the world could tell stories to their fellow citizens, true fables that explained why nations rose and fell; why men and women envied, raged, and loved; why children laughed in sunlight and trembled in the dark of night.'  
  
What does make children tremble in the dark of night? Shouldn't those lovely stories lull them peacefully to sleep? *O you know, you know, Hermione. You know why the small ones tremble in the dark dark night, for you were once a small one. Alas, no more… go on, keep reading my dear, you will never find the answer to your strife without me*  
  
She glanced across the library deftly, eyeing the remaining occupants.  
  
"Did you hear something, Ron?"  
  
"Ha! Only that bloody monkey snoring over there. Geez, don't you think he could get a room?"  
  
Hermione choked on thin air.  
  
"Wow Herm, are you ok?"  
  
"O yes, of course, something just went down the wrong pipe I guess. I think I'm going to go check out this book," She pushed clumsily away from the table. "Um yes, I think it could help me with extra credit for, for class, or something," she mumbled as she gathered her books.  
  
"Ah, she is beautifully strange," Ron sighed.  
  
This is the day, I will do it – the time is right. No one will notice. No one can notice but her. I can do it. Go, quick now! Quickly, quietly, but never invisibly gosh darn it.  
  
She hummed the theme of "Carmen" under her breath as she slipped Verges' book, The Hex of Venus' Hunger and Foining Fencing, behind the others. Sweat dripped from her brow, wetting the surface of Hogwarts: A History. Her arms ached from the weight of her precious books, the books that held the secrets of her life, her covert existence.  
  
O, this must be it! I must find it today, no – tonight! I will stay up all night if I must. It is the only way – I must walk in the valley of death in order to conquer the Dark. O how I am afraid of the Dark! Childish, childish fears do become me it seems. Think: concentration is key to survival. I must find the ingredients, the basis of my potion. Else I will live forever with my nose buried in a cumbersome book, one after the other, everyone forever thinking, 'O there goes Hermione the bookworm! Smart, intelligent Hermione. I wish I was as smart as she is…' No you don't. You have no idea. The pain. The agony. Everyday, the torture and temptation to be what I am not.  
  
She bumped into Ron on her way back to grab her bag. Blood rushed to his face and neck as he moved nimbly out of her way, executing a mild bow as she passed. She did not even attempt eye contact with the man she loved. The man she wanted to spend the rest of her condemned life with.  
  
I'm not good enough for him! I won't ever be until I rid myself of this…  
  
She hurried past Ron without a backward glance, sensing his disappointment and perplexity as his eyes bored into the small of her back. She slipped into the dark hall, stealing glances left and right.  
  
*Come Hermione, it's already 9:10 and you have plenty to do tonight. I will draw you in, never let go. You are mine Hermione, my toy forever and on in the days of Darkness, enveloping this world with timely fear. I will take you and twist you until you resemble nothing of this world. O this will be fun, my dear, jolly good fun!* 


	2. Philotes

DiScLaImEr: lalaland is me and I am it! And no, I do not claim to own ne of these characters! Did you think I would randomly steal Rowling's fine-ass work?! No no no no, though I might attempt some other deadly endeavor as such if she does not publish #5 netime soon! Enjoy the story, u cretons.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Drip drip drip goes the nip nip nip after the zip zip zip because of the kwip kwip kwip and I lip lip lip to the sip sip sip when they tip tip tip to the drip drip drip. And the drip drip drip goes the nip nip nip after the zip zip zip because of the kwip kwip kwip and I lip lip lip to the sip sip sip when they tip tip tip to the drip drip drip. An the drip drip–"  
  
"FASTEN YOUR MOUTH YOU MEASELY WORM!!"  
  
"Sso-orry boss, I didn't mean to, um, interrupt your–"  
  
"QUIET! NOW!!"  
  
Dolby nodded mutely and returned to his mopping.  
  
*Why does he have to be so mean? I wash his robes, mop his floors to a glossy black, fold his laundry, even clean his plate! I'm starting to think this bloody deal is no longer worth it! What does he want with Hermione anyway? She doesn't seem special, at least compared to good ol' Harry Potter. Of course, she's brilliant and resourceful, but how will she ever help our dilemma? O goodness, I must keep this to myself. Keep your face straight. If he can't see, he won't know. Or will he? Does wizardry include reading mind's? But if these ridiculously rebellious thoughts of mine were ever unleashed, I would not live through the night… O rubbish! There's another spot!*  
  
He bowed to the floorboards, scouring the wood grains until the floor's filth became his own. A tiny sigh escaped his lips, embodying his anxiety.  
  
"WHAT WAS THAT? Dolby, Dolby, Dolby, do you not take pleasure at your post in my lOvely domain? Can you not cleanse a solitary floor without expressing your "grief" in a spineless moan?! Come here. I need you to send this to our subject's room. Just set it beneath the door and then scamper back to your chores like the good little house elf I hired. Run along now. Go!"  
  
Dolby scampered up to the haunting figure behind the towering, mahogany desk. He clasped the note carefully, making sure not to crease or damage it.  
  
"Run with the wind, small one, run, run before I lose my patience!" groaned Voldemort.  
  
Dolby scuttered down the landing and out the door.  
  
"Just imagine: an army! An army of dexterity..." He chortled gleefully, swiveling his chair back to face the telescreen.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
  
  
Hermione ran the last few paces, not allowing herself a single breath until she was there.  
  
"Holly-dolly-oxy-polly!" Naturally, this was the new-fangled password of the week.  
  
"Welcome dear, you look the slightest bit pale…"  
  
She disregarded the friendly painting and hurried on. Some unmentionable force was pushing her on, bubbling in her blood, plucking her muscles into position to pounce.  
  
"Herm! Jolly good. I've been having terrific problems with the corroboration of these astrological charts. Do you–"  
  
She breezed past Harry before he could manage to engage her interest, galloping up the staircase to the girls' wing, two, three, two steps at a time. She slowly peeped through her door hole, straining to detect two- legged bodies, or maybe even three-legged bodies for that matter!  
  
"O thank the Dark! No one's here," she heaved as the oxygen came rushing back to quench her emaciated lungs.  
  
The Dark? Why did I thank the Dark. Bloody strange. *Hahaha ~ not so strange young grasshopper.*  
  
She secured the door behind her, and flopped down on her mat. Recently, she'd taken an interest in Eastern culture, adopting a bamboo mat instead of the customary goose down mattress of the West. She lay down on her back and gazed at the ceiling, making patterns out of the paint textures.  
  
Abruptly, she lurched on her side, craving the touch of leather. Her hand flared out beyond her control to grasp The History of Wizardry in Middle Earth. She stared at the cover, salivating in unexplainable desire. She opened it to an arbitrary page, page number twenty-seven and read:  
  
'Then the outer clouds turned into rain and poured in upon themselves until they were rained out, and all that was left was spinning balls of water. Inside that water swam a great fish of fire, which ate every impurity in the water and then defecated it all in great gouts of flame, which spouted up from the sea and fell back down as hot ash and poured back down as rivers of burning rock. From these turds of the firefish grew the islands of the sea, and out of the turds there crawled worms, which squirmed and slithered through the rock until the gods touched them and some became human beings and others became other animals.'  
  
The story of creation! But this is a most unusual rendering. *Read on, my love. Engrave this story in the root of your soul; it is after all the basis of your life forever more.*  
  
'Every one of the other animals was tied to the earth by strong vines that grew up to embrace them. No one saw these vines because they were godvines.'  
  
Ah, this must speak of those philotes in the universe. I recall Professor Dumbledore discussing this unique philosophy yesterday. What was it? All living things have philotic threads that link them to… to the center of the Earth, and then the Earth to the center of the universe? Yes, now I remember, "The life in dust that gathers all together into one". *Yes, go on, Hermione, understand and embrace who you are in my worldly motif.*  
  
'Only humans were not tied to the earth. It was not vines that bound them down, it was a web of light woven by no god that connected them upward to the sun. So all the other animals bowed down before the humans, for the vines dragged them down, while the lightweb lifted up the human eyes and heart.'  
  
Yes, the supremacy of humans to all other organic species. But it does not mention the supremacy of wizards to humans! The mind capacity and strength of will of the souls practicing the art of wizardry has been proven to be above and beyond that of normal humans. *Well done, well done. Continue.*  
  
'All these centuries and generations, these hoping men and women looked with their half-blind eyes, staring into the sun and sky, staring into the stars and shadows, knowing that there were invisible things beyond those walls but not guessing what they were.'  
  
'Then in a time of war and terror–'  
  
War? I wonder what war this refers to. You would think a history book would fully explain itself. But anyway, this war would be a war of humans, nimble and strong they may be, but it could not lead to total war. On the other hand, a war of wizard, one side led by dear Harry, and the other by…  
  
A shiver shimmied up her spine, causing her to quake hysterically. *Yes, yes, but who else shall stand at my side? What number of recreations shall surround and worship me? Read, child, read and learn!*  
  
'When all hope seemed lost, weavers on a far distant world, who were not gods but who knew the gods and each one of the weavers was itself a web with hundreds of strands reaching out to their hands and feet, their eyes and mouths and ears, these weavers created a web so strong and large and fine and far-reaching that they meant to catch up all human beings in that web and hold them to be devoured. But instead the web caught a distant god, a god so powerful that no other god had dared to know his name, a god so quick that no other god had been able to see his face; this god was stuck to the web they caught. Only he was too quick to be held in one place to be devoured. He raced and danced up and down the strands, all the strands, any strands that twine from man to man, from man to star, from weaver to weaver, from light to light, he dances along the strands. He cannot escape but he does not want to, for now all the gods see him and all gods know his name, and he knows all things that are known and hears all words that are spoken and by his breath he blows men and women beyond the reach of light of any star, and then he sucks inward and the men and women come back; and because he never holds still along the web, he is everywhere and anywhere. This entity has the power to love, to hate, to glorify, to condemn, but most of all, to welcome all virtuous into his light.'  
  
*O yes, I am He and He is me! Sleep, one, sleep–sweet dreams.*  
  
On that final note, Hermione slipped into a violent REM slumber, still clutching the leather volume to her chest.  
  
A small scratching noise ensued as a yellow slip of paper crept in due time under the door. After a trifling giggle, naught else was heard. 


	3. Bouncing Off The Walls

Disclaimer: ummm. I'm a wee bit tired right now so I don't feel like writing nething too earth-shattering…. I don't own them, wish I did, yadda- yadda. And beware the Honey-Covered-Orgy-Seeking-Polar-Ice-Bunny-Who-Eats- Caramel-Apples-During-Sex… he's a scary one.  
  
  
  
A Shadow danced and pranced about the land, riding past the wind, through the leaves, and under the trees. It slowly swept around Hogwarts in silence, darting between the many traps and snares of Dumbledore's hand. The Shadow jerked to a halt at a window, left carelessly open in the night. Among the billowing curtains it zipped, leaping from bed to bed, searching for its business.  
  
*No not here, nor here, nor there. I can't say as I've seen this number of girls as one! Ah, here is her sting; it floods the room, devouring the joy of others.*  
  
It lighted upon Hermione's brow, filtering through her thoughts, dreams and hopes.  
  
*Here I plant the seed of my dreams, my student, my pupil, my love, grow on! Spread as long as the day is old!*  
  
With that lasting resolution, the shadow darted betwixt her ears, planting itself deep in the knots of her erudition.  
  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
  
A frown slowly spread across Hermione's forehead, refusing to accept the inevitable. Her torso violently jerks upward, and she unleashed a screeching scream. Bulging eyes panned the room, contemplating the source of her distressed awakening. All the other girls had left for breakfast, leaving her to herself. She faintly perceived a rough beat leaking under the door, forcing the walls as well as her head to pound to the rhythm of its pulse. She swung her body off the bed and placed her feet gingerly on the floor. The drumming throbbed through her toes to her knees and up to her chest where it welled to her head, nurturing an eye-splitting headache.  
  
"Gee-shmee, that little obsessed freakazoid twirp can never keep it down."  
  
Then she recognized the hard beat and her head began to bob.  
  
Ah, dark Sugarcult, I am your peon, use me as you see need.  
  
She hummed the tune, and then, dressing hastily in her robes, belted out the lyrics of the intoxicating song:  
  
I'm bouncing off the walls again  
  
I'm looking like a fool again  
  
I threw away my reputation  
  
One more song for the radio station  
  
I'm bouncing off the walls again  
  
I'm looking like a fool again  
  
Waking up on the bathroom floor  
  
Pull myself together just to fall once more  
  
And my heart's still beating out of my chest  
  
And this town is still making me sick  
  
And every penny from my last paycheck  
  
I've blown on you  
  
I'm bouncing off the walls again  
  
I'm looking like a fool again  
  
So go ahead and take a picture  
  
And hang it up so you can tear me down  
  
I'm bouncing off the walls again  
  
I'm looking like a fool again  
  
I'm bouncing off the walls again  
  
I'm looking like a fool again  
  
I'm bouncing off the walls again  
  
By the end of the song, she rushed out of Gryffindor tower, craving eggs and bacon. The music wiped away her fears and for the moment she could not recall the night's trauma. Nor did she see the ignored yellow note, swept behind her door for the discovery of any upright meddler.  
  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
  
  
Hermione plopped down next to Harry and across from Ron. Many heads turned inquisitively in her direction after being informed earlier of her strange behavior.  
  
"Food!" sighed Hermione as she dug into a piece of dejected sausage. Her stomach gurgled audibly for all to hear.  
  
Ron gave a knowing glance to Harry, who proceeded to stare at his plate. After a few moments filled with chompchompgulpgurgle, he cleared his throat.  
  
"Umm, Herm? You must be dreadfully hungry, after skipping dinner last night and all. O!" he squealed as Herm nearly unseated him in reaching for the milk.  
  
Ron piped in, "What Harry's meaning to say is, well, why did you take that book from the library last night?"  
  
Hermione choked on her biscuit – "WHAT? Oh, I mean, whi-ich book?"  
  
Harry eyed Ron and nodded, "Well, you left in such a hurry that I didn't have time to yell after you that it was reserved for some such person from Slytherin. I say, the librarian was bloody mad."  
  
"O, well, I didn't notice, I'm sorry – you see, no, ummm, o yes, it's for my, uh, extra credit project, remember? I'm pretty positive I was actually, the, uh, 'Slytherin' who it was reserved for. Yes. They must have just made a trivial mistake, that's all."  
  
"O ok. Don't eat too fast now."  
  
Hermione nodded and continued her chomping.  
  
"Well looky there, the owls are here!" Ron sighed and turned to see if his mother had brought him anything from home.  
  
Hordes of owls of all sorts, sizes, and colors dived into the hall. At the very end, a small tuft of feathers puffed their way past the chatty elderly owls to the Gryffindor table. On seeing Ron, Pig gave a tiny squeak and proceeded towards the table. He then plopped down in the middle of Ron's lopsided eggs, hopping up and done incessantly. Ron groaned and tried to clean him up while untying the rolled up scroll from his leg.  
  
"Another letter from mum and dad, I suppose."  
  
"Read it aloud, Ron, I wanna hear what they have to say," chimed in Harry.  
  
Hermione continued filling her bottomless pit.  
  
"Ok, here it is." Ron stole a glance at Hermione before continuing. Clearing his throat,  
  
"Hullo Ron hunnie dear. How is Hogwarts for you this year? I do hope you stay out of trouble now, unlike your brothers."  
  
Proudly, George and Fred snickered in unison.  
  
"I think your father has found another…"  
  
As Ron continued reading, Hermione jerked upright and lulled backward. Her eyes filmed over and rolled once, twice to the back of her head. Harry jabbed an elbow into Ron's gut, inducing a loud !yelp! Ron glowered at him until he understood his comrade's purpose. Hermione's familiar figure no longer sat at her place.  
  
"Where in the bloomin junipers did she go?" Ron asked a white faced Harry. The only response he could get was Neville's shaky finger pointing towards the floor beyond their table. Ron swallowed and stretched down to look beneath the table.  
  
"H-EE-ELP HELP! HELP! HEL-HELP! AHHHHHHH!"  
  
All the heads turned as one to witness the twisted shape of Hermione convulsing diabolically on the floor. 


End file.
